New Beginnings

I slowly boarded the plane and closed my eyes wishing that distance would remove this hurt in my heart. The pieces lay scattered all over my life and family was the healing presence that I needed the most. The brisk winter wind whipped across my face as I left the plane. It took everything I had not to crumple on the jet-way from emotional exhaustion. I held myself up and thought to myself will this pain ever end.

The mist is wiped from the mirror as I get ready for bed. Staring back at me is the same girl that walked off the plane looking for solace in the distance that separated my life. The hurt that I thought would never leave my heart has become just that.......pain from the past the is a distant memory today. I look around and I see our new home and find myself in a different world.

A year has gone by and I feel as though I have aged in a matter of months what seems like it would take a lifetime. I have been broken only to stand up and realize that there was absolutely nothing about me that was broken, maybe a little scratched but not broken. Today as I look at my reflection I am healed and the pain of yesterday is a moment in the past. 

I have grown up so much over the last year. I have accepted people just as they are and wish for them to be nothing else. I have found strength within myself where it had been hidden for so long. Every morning I wake up and I am excited by the endless possibilities of what the day may hold for me. In reclaiming myself I have discovered love that I never knew existed. I have rediscovered hope, joy and love. 

I have found new acceptance of my Lupus and realize that it is not a condition of myself but an extension of who I am. I have seen scary times in the emergency room over the last seven months but in return I have felt the healing power of my own energy from within. In the next year I am prepared for surgery and have accepted the new challenges Lupus has bestowed upon me over the last few months. I do not feel discouraged at all but instead feel ready to battle anything my disease throws my way. I am not defined by Lupus, I am defined by who I am with or with out it.